Trip to Busan

Last week on Saturday Bruno, Russell, Sylvia and I took a train to Busan for the day. I hadn't visited the city yet, but I heard it was gorgeous, and it was a nice day to go exploring.


(Haeundae Beach, Busan, South Korea)

The train ride takes a little over an hour to get from Hogye (our little township) to Haeundae Beach in Busan, and only costs 4,000KRW each. It's neat too because the seats can rotate to face the opposing direction so you can sit 4 people together no problem.

Anyway, this post is mostly about pictures and little stories, so let's get to it. Click the link!

We got to the train station in Busan at about 1:30PM or so, and it only took about a 5 minute walk from there to get to the beach. There was some event going on at the entrance to the beach, a big stage with lots of different singing/dancing acts, and lots of people enjoying the show.

Russell, a programmer from ATS who I've been hanging around with a lot lately, was the first of us to get his feet wet, excited to experience Korean water for the first time (he's special).






(......)

We saw a lot of people there that we knew, including JK Choi and his wife, Ricky, his wife and kids, Arif and his wife and Matt and his girlfriend.


(Arif with his classic pose)


(Matt Wong and Tiffany reading trying to figure out what to do next)


(Ricky's beautiful daughter Nalini)

There were a lot of people on the beach taking pictures of each other, lots of funny posing, and lots of jumping up in the sand. I saw a group of girls taking turns being photographed jumping up in the air and offered to take a picture of all three of them jumping up so they could have one together. Once I took the picture I handed back the camera and that was that, but Russell insisted that I get in the shot with them jumping and take a picture using my camera... He's a good wingman ;)

Here's the result, good job Russell!



There was a group of guys on the beach just playing around and at one point they ran up to us and asked Sylvia which one she thought was the most handsome (at least we think that's what they were asking) and as soon as she picked someone all of them erupted and ran after the chosen guy and chased him into the water nearly fully dressed.. haha. Once we caught onto the game, Bruno suggested that we go back and declare that we made a mistake so we could see someone else be chased into the cold water, haha.


(This guy dove right in fully dressed, I don't even think he took his shoes off..)

Here are some girls we met.. I tried to find some crafty way to start talking with them, only to later find out that one of them lived in California for 10 years and spoke better English than I did.. haha. Hello would have done just fine. Anyway, they were in Busan to go surfing the next day, something I should try out sometime (maybe...)



We asked them to take a picture of all of us with my camera so we'd have one with all of us in it.. and since we were on a beach we of course had to jump!



You can check out the rest of the pictures here. Ok, I'm now done posting for the month! haha.. Maybe I'll post again soon, but I doubt it..

Take care for now! :)

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The Motorbike

About 500 people (give or take 490) have been bugging me to post about my new bike that I bought back in March. Well here it is! I wanted to get everything ready for it, including taking some good pictures, and a video of the ride into work. I finally figured out how to make the video work somewhat like I envisioned.

Here's a picture of the bike by itself on the streets of Hogye, the town I live near.

(Daelim Roadwin 125cc)

Click the link for some more info and a video.

As some of you might know, I've always wanted to own a motorbike, but I was held back by the cost, the hassle (lessons) and the risk to my life/limbs. I'm ok with dealing with just one of those things, haha.

I bought the bike brand new through a friend of Sang Won's, who owns a dealership in Daegu (I think). The cost was about 2,400,000KRW (about 2,100CND) for the bike plus the cost of insurance and registration (another 350,000KRW or so). I've already put over 1400 km's on it so I'm kinda glad I went ahead and bought new. It runs really well, and it's really cheap to maintain here.. Just recently I got an oil change for it on the way home from work one night and it only set me back about 5 bucks.

I'm really glad I have the opportunity here to do this, it's so much fun, and it's an experience I'll always cherish, and now I can say that I can ride a bike no problem. It is a lot different than what I'm used to though (mountain bikes).

Here's a shot I took of me on the bike... I had the help of a volunteering bystander to line up the shot, it was a slow exposure so I had to stay pretty still.



And here's the time-lapse video that everyone has been anxious to see. I apologize for the camera shake, the bike vibrates pretty hard and the camera is too small to stabilize itself, so this will have to do until I can rig up my Nikon to the bike somehow. The song is the background is O My Heart by Mother Mother.



Hope you enjoyed the posts! If you have any questions just shoot them off in the comments.

Take care for now :)

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Dinner with Mr. Heo and Mr. Lee

I know, I know... It's been a long while since I've posted on this blog, I'm sorry! I won't give any excuses, I'll just get right back into posting, deal?



Over a month ago my favourite KPS electrician, Mr. Heo, Joon Gil invited me out to a tradition Korean meal with another KPS worker you might know, Mr. Lee, Sang Won. I've heard of Korean restaurants serving octopus that would be cooked live, right in front of you, and I tried to tell Mr. Heo that's what I wanted to experience... There was a little misunderstanding there, haha. Click the link to read about it...

He picked a restaurant in the small town near our apartment complex. I don't think he's ever been to this restaurant, but he made a good choice. It was clean, quiet, and had good service and great food. One interesting thing about this restaurant is that instead of sitting on the floor directly, or using tables and chairs, they used something kind of in between. The rooms had raised floors, but with a cut out underneath the table so you didn't have to cross your legs. And they had seat backs that would just sit on the floor, perfect!!




(Sang Won with his perpetual smile)

They ordered the meal, and after a short while the dishes started coming in. It was crazy the amount of food on the table, and it seemed like it would never stop coming! once one dish was finished on the table, it would be replaced with something else, an endless supply of food. It was great!

Here's a 1 minute video showing some of the food coming out, and the traditional way to serve drinks in Korea, always have someone else serve your drink for you. I really like that cultural difference, I think it brings people closer together, and shows respect.



So the food kept coming out, and the drinks kept pouring. I was getting stuffed and buzzed. Things were good! Then one of the dishes that comes out kind of surprises me, because it's still moving. Haha... In the dish are thick cut up tentacles of an octopus that was in one piece only minutes prior. And like a worm, they are still moving and wiggling about, and you're supposed to eat them like that! Well, I'm game for anything...



The key when eating this food is to chew, and chew fast.. haha. The suckers on these tentacles are still quite functional, and you wouldn't want it to latch to the inside if your throat, would you? It's hard to get the tentacles off the dish too, since the suckers adhere pretty well to the smooth surface, so being crafty with the chopsticks helps.



We had a lot of great food that night.. Cooked squid, raw beef, lots of raw fish (sashimi), whole cooked fish, stuffed crustaceans, chicken soup, some fruit dishes, kimchi, etc. etc. Here are some pictures of the food:


(Why bother gutting the fish when you can just cook it whole?)




After the meal, we stumbled over to another bar for some more food (crazy!!) and drinks. We were all pretty buzzed at this point, just chatting and having a good time. After that, Mr. Heo used a driver service, where you hire someone to drive you and your car back to your place, where he would get picked up by another driver. A good way to get home safe, and still have your car with you for the next day.

Sang Won has since left KPS for some new opportunities. He'll be moving to a city closer to Seoul, and we'll miss him! A few Friday's ago we went out with him to celebrate his new job, I got pretty liquored that night.. haha.

That's it for now! I should be posting soon about some other things, stay tuned.

Take care :)

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Another pile of Mini-Updates

Hey! I know you guys are expecting a post about my new bike, but the weather has been pretty cold lately so I haven't had a good opportunity to take a good picture of it.. Once I do, I'll post about it... I'd just like to say that it's a lot of fun, and I've taken it to work a few times :)

I'm still doing well, I'm still loving work, and I'm still loving the food. Even if the food sometimes comes to you wiggling.. haha. Click the link to find out more.

The Bearded Man:
About a month back we were kinda teasing JR about his inability to grow a beard, or at least a full one, so we dared him to not shave for 2 weeks so we could see what god graced him with... let's just say he was pretty happy to shave it off after the two weeks was up ;)


(JR and his beard.. Kind of reminds me of my brother..)

Biga Berta:
He better get his ass back here soon!!


(Let's find a head that fits in here..)

Amazing Sights in the Morning:
Often on the ride in on the bus we'll see some truly magical scenes.. It seems the clouds here are more interesting than the ones back home or something. The clouds are often patchy and they let beams of sunlight down in pretty majestic ways. Here's a pretty crappy picture that shows that. I wish I could show you a photo that a friend of mine here took at night with a similar scene, it was epic! Maybe he'll lend it to me for the blog.


(Beam of sunlight lighting the horizon)

Lotte Ferris Wheel:
Sean, George, Gerry and I went to Bennigan's last week for some North American food, it was pretty awesome (ribs and shrimp) but I don't think it's something I'd do very often. The Korean restaurants are great around here, no real need for comfort foods so far :) In front of Bennigan's there's a giant Lotte Hotel with a HUGE Ferris wheel attached to it that you can see the entire city from. The little cabins are heated too! I'm gonna have to go check that out some day when I have my camera, it's apparently only 4 bucks for the ride or something like that.


(Lotte Ferris Wheel)

That's all the updates I have for you so far! I have a few more posts up my sleeve; I just have to upload some videos to youtube when I have time and write something up :)

Take care for now!

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Guy Without Camera

Well, this weekend has been pretty relaxing. I worked the last 3 Saturdays so it was nice to have a full weekend to not do a whole lot. Gave me some time to update the blog yesterday, and ride around on my new motorbike to get used to it. Too bad I left my camera at work though, I would have liked to have taken some pictures of me on the bike for you guys to see! Oh well. Oh, I also went to the gym on the apartment complex for the first time! I hope to make a routine of that in the mornings before going in to work.

Take care, and stay tuned for some bike pictures probably next weekend!

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Nightclub in Ulsan

Remember how I said that before this trip you probably would never have caught me in karaoke bar? I would have said the same thing about a dance club too, haha. But when in Rome...

A bunch of us from work wanted to go check out the local dance clubs here because we've heard that they can be pretty crazy, fun, and different from what we'd expect back home, so we made some plans to check it out with Mr. Lee, Sang Won, a smiley fun loving KPS worker who we invited to have come out with us. With the help from 2 younger KPS techs from work we decided to go to the Holiday dance club in downtown Ulsan. So Saturday night at around 11pm, after hanging out at Kevin's place for a few hours, we head downtown. One group with a taxi, and one group with Sang Won. I was kind of on the fence about going since I was pretty tired, but I'm damn glad I went, what an experience!

Click the link to see some pictures and videos.

The night life in Korea is vibrant, there is always something going on, and always lots of people on the streets. And drinking is a big part of their culture so without fail you'll see a few sloshed people stumbling around the streets trying desperately to stay upright, haha.

As you might know, I'm not much of a drinker myself, but I do want to experience this culture as much as I can. I decided I would drink a bit that night.

We get to the club and it's a giant hall with a big stage at the opposite end, a smaller dance floor, and a huge area with lots of booths with comfy benches like you would find in a restaurant. The dance floor was probably only 1/6th of the space in the hall, with the rest of the space taken up by these tables. There was an actual performance on the stage with a pretty girl singing and dancing with the dance floor pretty well filled up. The stage has more lights and effects than I've ever heard of in a dance club back home, (realizing that I've been to very few dance clubs) and the sound was great. This was a pretty big shock to me already, and I was smillin' from ear to ear at just the sights and sound. Just moments after we get there and we are seated in a corner booth, the girl up on stage does more than just sing.. she starts to rip off some clothes.. haha. Not really what I was expecting. Don't worry though, she just shows her bare bum then the curtain drops. And that was the last time we saw any bare body parts that night. Interesting way to start the night ;)


(A crappy picture of the entire club from our corner booth)

It was neat to see that when she was just singing, everyone was dancing, not very energetically, but dancing none the less, but once she started removing articles of clothing, girls and guys alike all stopped dancing and was fixated on the performer. Once the curtain dropped everyone went back to their tables.

So we're sittin' down, all of us Canadians with Sang Won and one of his KPS co-workers and we find out that to sit down, we're going to have to pay 220,000KRW since we're foreigners.. haha. Oh well. With that comes a fruit dish and a bottle of scotch, so we didn't complain much.

The way this night club worked, as did most night clubs in this country, the dancing isn't continuous.. it happens in acts, with breaks in between for people to go back to their tables and talk. So there would be a dance act with singing, or a DJ, or whatever, and about 20 minutes into it at most, the act would end and everyone would go back to their seats for about 15 or 20 minutes.. then it would start over with the curtain going up and a pile of people rushing to the dance floor again.

While all that is going on, there's something happening behind the scene called booking, where the waiters would pair two people up by bringing a girl (or a guy i think) to someone else's table and sit them down next to a match.. I'm not really sure how it all works, and how you sign up for that, but it's a way for them to get past the initial awkward meeting, as this culture can be very timid between the sexes. I find that fascinating. The girls here are very very timid, and most of them can barely look into your eyes and they often giggle and run away, worse when you're a North American.. haha.

Because of the barrier between the sexes, you'll often see guys and girls dancing separately on the dance floor.. the guys dancing with other guys, and the girls dancing with other girls. I think it's kinda cool that way, people tend to be more at ease in groups.

Anyway, the next time an act comes on Sang Won grabs my hand and drags me onto the dance floor.. I'm pretty giddy at this point at the whole experience so I'm just going with the flow. Guys here hold hands all the time, and they don't shy away from contact. North Americans would deem that uncool, but I kinda like it. It's not sexual between guys, it's just friendship, affection. I've always been a tactile person so it suits me better than the way things are back home. Mr. Heo at work always takes my hand when he needs to show me something, or pats the small of my back when talking about the weekend or whatever, it's pretty common here.


(Cat and Dennis dancing)

On the dance floor there were lots of people, pretty equal spread of guys and girls, all in little groups. I start dancing in my normal awkward manner, but I'm having a good time, all the Canadians are up there and you can tell that the Koreans are fascinated with us.. haha. Girls want to dance with us but are too shy, and the guys want to dance with us but that seemed a little awkward. Every once in a while girls will glance at us and giggle, sometimes pulling at our arms and running away back to their groups.. You can never tell what they are doing or what their intent is because you would either need to know their language so you could talk with them, or their gestures and practices so you would know what they are trying to do. Oh well, it's a fun game regardless :)


(Se Hyun, Sang Won, Cat and Kevin at our table)


(Kevin and Cat on the dance floor)


(Se Hyun and Kevin enjoying some dried fish thing)


(JR Also enjoying some dried fish thing)

Everytime the dancing stops we head back to the table and drink and talk. As the night went on, and I kept drinking (moderately, I swear) I wanted more and more to just go up and dance with these people... Often times the dancing would start and I just left the table by myself and headed for the dance floor. It was so fun! I can totally see what the fascination is with dancing. The little back and forth with the girls giggling, the dances and songs they all known and do the motions for, girls and guys alike, and the good music being performed right there, not just some CD pumping, all in all it was awesome.

A short video just to give you an idea of what it was like:


At about 2am I needed to go to the washroom, so I got up and started walking to the back to go down the stairs to the guys room. I'm feeling pretty buzzed at this point but I think I'm ok. I get to the bottom of the stairs where you turn the corner into the washroom but my body's momentum carries me into the wall ahead of me and I shoulder check it. Ok so maybe I'm a little drunk at this point. This is a rare occurrence for me, so please understand :)

Anyway, this goes on for a few hours, go up and dance for a bit, go back and talk for a bit.. The club apparently stays open until 6am, which we thought was pretty crazy, eventually we left at about 3:30. I could have probably gone until they closed the place, unreal!

It was such a fun time and I'm so glad I went.. When we left we grabbed a pair of cabs and went back to the apartment complex.. even though it was about 25 minutes away, it only cost 15 bucks split between the three of us. Sweet!

Some more pictures here.

Well, that's all I really feel like writing right now, my fingers are tired! I'm gonna go take a shower, and maybe take my new bike down the the gas station to fill it up :) Oh yeah, I bought a motorbike.. haha. Sorry mom. :o

More about that in my next post :)

Take care for now!

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Mini-Updates!

I'm doing great :) I still love (some of) the food (can't get enough of that pork soup!!) and I'm adjusting pretty well to the culture, learning bits here and there. Work is going great, I really feel like I'm doing exactly what I always wanted to do. All in all life is pretty good.

Click the link for some update-tidbits.

We said farewell to another short term worker, Adam, who I worked closely with over the last 3 weeks he's been here. We'll miss him! He's been great to work with, and we both love the pork soup equally :) Hopefully he'll be back here to help out in the future.


(Adam seen here wondering where all the pork soup went..)

On Friday nights the AECL crew goes to a local bar called "Wa-Bar" that serves lots of imported beer, (including Moosehead!) I missed the last few but was able to check it out this past Friday for a few drinks. I took a snapshot of this beer for Alain:


(Newcastle Brown Ale)

Oh, I'm giving some serous thought to getting a motorbike while over here.. There are lots of advantages to having one, including being able to drive in to work and cut the travel time in half. And giving me a bit more mobility to do some exploring through the mountains for some good photo ops. And they aren't really expensive here.. Only disadvantage is that my mom will kill me when I get back to Canada..

Here are some more random pictures since last weekend.

Take care for now!

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Random on the Rocks

As a quick way to catch up, I figured I'd talk about my last week in one post.. It'll probably end up being a pretty big mess by the time I'm done, but whatever.. haha.

Improvised Fish Transportation
While here I've learned that the most efficient way to transport small fish is to just dump them with a chute onto the back of a pick up truck... haha, even if a few fall off the sides, whatever! Just throw them back on top of the pile and move on. Five second rule! This picture was actually from a few weeks ago, on the way home from work on the bus. None of us on the bus could believe it.


(Yum!)

Gyeongju Hilton
Last Saturday was our Project Directors' retirement party at the Hilton in Gyeongju. It was such an awesome time. Everyone from the project was there, including all the families; it was great to meet everyone. The food was great, the entertainment was fun, and afterward hanging out in the lounge was a lot of fun too. Lots of good company!

I won't talk too much about the party as it doesn't have too much to do with the Korea culture, but if you're interested you can see all the pictures I took here.

Nurrae Bong
A lot of us rented rooms at the Hilton that night so we wouldn't have to head back to our apartments too early, which would be no fun. I booked a room because I love staying in hotels :) and I figured it would be fun to hang around that region of Korea for a night. After the party a group of 7 of us decided to head out to a local Nurrae Bong (Karaoke, or more literally, Singing Room). The group was JR and his wife Noelyn, Kevin and his girlfriend Cat, Brian who's just staying with us a short time and Darrin who worked with me in Saint John while preparing for this project.

I should probably mention this if you didn't already know this about me, but I absolutely loath the concept of karaoke, and I've voiced that a few times I'm sure. But I kept an open mind, and I was with some good people, and no more than 30 minutes into it I was already ripping the microphone out of peoples hands to sing some songs.. hahaha. I won't admit to liking karaoke now, but I can totally see the fascination people have with it, especially in the asian culture.

Anyway, this is how the Nurrae Bong works.. It's not like a North American karaoke bar where there is only one karaoke setup in a big room. A Korean karaoke bar has many smaller rooms that you can rent a period of time. The Hilton had one on the top floor and it was about 150,000KRW which included 7 beer.. we didn't want to go for that so we went to one down the road that was only 20 bucks, and you bought your own beer after that for 3 or 4 bucks. You get what you pay for though, as this bar was completely empty except for us, and it was particularly dirty.. oh well, we still had a lot of fun! We stayed until we could barely talk from singing so much, then we walked back to the hotel.

The entrance to the bar, which was in the basement of a little plaza:


Here's a shot of me rockin' that mic:


On The Rocks
The next day Sean and I had a good breakfast at the Hilton and then headed back out to the complex in the car. It was a gorgeous day and I didn't feel like wasting it writing on my blog (sorry, haha) so I hung out with Bert and made some plans to go up on the mountain and sit on some rocks he had found earlier that day and chill.

Before leaving we met up with Cat, Kevin's girlfriend, and we invited them to come up to the rocks with us. Kevin wasn't exactly feeling 100% but that was no excuse so we dragged him off the couch by his legs and off we went. The rocks aren't too far up the mountain, but I was still huffin' and puffin' by the time I got up to the top.. I'll eventually get used to it I swear!

We hung out up there catching some rays and enjoying the cool breeze while drinking some Hite beer and chatting. We spent over an hour there just hanging out, and I took some pictures too. The first off-camera lighting portraits I've taken since I got here! (other than at work).


(Kevin and Cat in a Hite advertisement)


(Camille on the left, who joined us for a little while, then Kevin, Cat, Bert and myself)

That little trip was great, It was so beautiful up there. I'll remember that for a long while I think :) Check out the other picture here.

Korean Gift
In Korea it's customary and quite common to give gifts to friends or new coworkers, etc. I hadn't experienced that until yesterday when one of the KPS employees I work with gave me a sweet gift. Mr. Heo, Joon Gil (Heo is pronounced similar to just Ho, I guess you could call it a silent 'e') is an electrician for KPS and he and I work very closely together. He's a very nice man and we get along great, we also work well together and have similar quality standards; he's been a big help so far with the project. Yesterday while we were on break outside enjoying the nice weather he gave me two walnuts and he said to rub them in my hands and he motioned and made a rattling noise as to say that I should keep them with me and rub them together so they rattle and it should massage the hands. I thought it was so sweet of him and I'm very thankful. It's a very simple gift but it meant a lot to me. Remember the small plate I got from Dab Gallery in Victoria that I took a picture of in my Seoul hotel? I think that's what I intend to give him; a little something I picked up in my travels that's from back home.

Here's a picture I took of the two gifts together (I'd like to thank Arif and his wife for lending me their awesome Manfrotto tripod that helped make this shot possible):


And here is Mr. Heo himself, a picture I took while I had my gear set up for some AECL headshots:


Thank you Mr. Heo for being so kind!

I think that's it for now... I'll try to stay more current with some smaller posts as things happen, but it is a challenge to find time between work and trying to experience this culture fully :) I'll keep you posted anyway..

Take care for now!

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A Walk and a Drive #2

Note: I know it's been three weeks since I've last posted an entry on this blog... I'm sorry! While being intensely sick with what I think was a sinus infection, I didn't feel much like writing.. Then after being sick, finally being able to go out and do things, and spend some time at work including overtime, I also didn't feel much like writing.. Though I do have a lot to write about! I'm still learning so much about this country, and I still have so much to learn yet. I think I'm going to start writing shorter posts (after the epic posts I'm planning for today of course) so that it doesn't seem like such a big chore to me.. haha. Well, let's get on to the topic.

The Urban Walk:
Two weekends ago Bert and I went for another walk... This time, instead of heading farther away from civilization and climbing up the mountain behind our complex, we headed into the town of Hogye near where we live to go and look at some of the shops and see what it was like. In order to get to the town from our complex, we have to walk through little rural neighbourhoods with very narrow roads and lots of agriculture. It's interesting, the contrast of the modern city roads and building, right next to these old narrow roads with old buildings. I believe it has to do with South Korea developing so quickly in the last 50 years or so.


(Rural subdivision between our complex and the town of Hogye)

It's so cool really, all these rice paddies and little farms with roosters and chickens and whatever, and in the horizon there's no less than a half dozen sky cranes all working full time to put together new buildings for this expanding country.


(Rice paddies and sky cranes)


(Another strong contrast, giant apartment complex surrounded by rice paddies)

About 30-40 minutes after leaving the complex we got down to highway 7 which is the main interconnect to the city center of Ulsan.. It's not really wise to cross that street by foot, and we had no plans to anyway, so we walked along the highway on a railroad track to get into the town. I saw what I thought was a good photo opportunity with a local walking along the side of the rail:



As we walk into the town it quickly changes from rural to urban, from not-so-clean to not-so-bad.


(Let 'er dangle)



(You sometimes find strange things lying around...)

This is one of the side streets in Hogye, to show you how packed everything is here:

(It's not very busy because it's early morning on a Sunday, but these streets do come alive on a Friday or Saturday night for sure)

Bert and I wander around looking at stuff, finding out prices and what-not, and just soaking it all in. At one point we find a stray dog that just follows us around for a few minutes.. He's very timid and doesn't seem to like being touched, but he's very playful and energetic and looks friendly.. He was our dog for a few minutes :)


(We never did see his owner, just a distressed lady who didn't seem to trust this dog at all, too bad we couldn't understand what she was saying..)

We walk to the end of one of the main roads (where we see that pile of toilet parts, haha) and we start heading back where we came from to look for a taxi. We waive one down pretty quick and hop in.. We show him the little card we get when we move in that tells people where we live in Korean. 4,800KRW later we're back home! The taxi drive didn't want to take any extra money for having two in the car, nor did he want to take any tips.. I can get used to that ;)

There are a few more pictures on the website here.

The Mountain Tour:
Later in that same Sunday, Bert, Arif and I went on a tour of Gyeongju, a neighbouring city just north of Ulsan. This time I drove, I think it was my first time driving in the country, but I could be wrong. Speaking of driving, this country is crazy, haha. Maybe not as crazy as what I've heard of countries like India and China, but it's up there. Motorbikes here don't obey speed limits, traffic lights, or common sense. Car's rarely use signal lights, and rarely uses caution when changing lanes. But traffic moves though, and if you stay sharp, and follow the dance, you'll be alright. Sometimes you have to be a bit aggressive to ensure your place on the road.

Gyeongju, from my impression, is mostly a tourist city. There's an amusement park, lots of little shops and temples, traditional houses everywhere, and it's generally quite pretty.

Our intent was to make it to the Gyeongju Hilton where there was 4-wheeler rentals nearby, but we didn't end up finding it, and it was pretty cold anyway, so we drove up a touristy mountain to see what we could find.

The drive up the mountain was awesome. As most of you know, I love driving, and I love winding roads. It was so beautiful, even though the view was shortened by the mist and overcast.


(A quick stop at the end of a trail for some pictures)

It took a while to get up to the top, and when we got up there we had to pay 2,000KRW to park the car (peanuts!). Then we started wandering around the area. I didn't find out much about this attraction, and we didn't bother getting tickets to go up further on the mountain (way too cold, we'll save that for another time).

Above the parking lot there was a bell tower (it's hard to see the bell in the picture though, sorry!):




(Arif taking some pictures with his Sony SLR)


(Big Berta with his mountains)

We didn't hang around too much longer, just long enough to see the views, freeze our butts off, and then head back down the hill. We took the long way back, through the mountains to the east, following the coast south towards the power plant, than back up over the mountain on the route we from work. [We got stuck behind a really really slow driver going up over the mountain... slow in more ways than one.. S/he (pretty sure it was a she) just about rolled off the mountain a few times, and nearly got into a head on collision with oncoming traffic around a blind turn. I was pretty happy to pass her once we got passed the narrow mountain road... haha]

Check out the rest of the pictures here.

Well, that's it for this post! I hope you learned a little something.. I still have a few more short posts in mind before the end of the day, so stay tuned.

Take care for now!

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A Walk and a Drive

Most people who have been following my blog have been asking me often what the surroundings are like around here.. This post should help paint a picture.

Last weekend I wandered around with a new coworker of mine, Bert. Him and I have been getting along pretty well, and when I'm not too sick to move, we find something to do around the city. (yeah, I've been pretty sick since last Monday.. I don't get sick very often, so this is really bugging me.. :P )

The Mountain Walk:

The first adventure was climbing (well, it was definitely more like climbing that walking) the mountain in our apartment complex's backyard. Sean told us how to get up there on which trails, so I put on my sneakers and we headed up.

It was a beautiful day, for Ulsan.. 15 degrees, and hazy with that overhanging mist I was talking about earlier.

Before I start.. Remember when I said a few times that I don't walk much? yeah... This just about killed me.. haha.

Here's a picture of the trail that starts at the complex, with a lady being pushed down the hill by her cart. I'm not too sure where she was coming from, or where she was going. Maybe someday I'll know what to ask to find out :)



As you get farther up the mountain side, you see the complex get smaller and denser, and it starts to look very very different from what it looks like when you're in the complex.



It's really hard to imagine that I walked all the way up this mountain, to the point where I'm looking down at the roofs of these 15 story apartment buildings.. it's a steep hike up! I was panting pretty much the whole way up.. If I had to talk it was only one word per breath.. haha. My legs were doing fine though, it was just my lungs. I don't get much exercise.. *cough*

About 3/4 of the way up the mountain, we find a little trail that goes down a ways and up another peak. It has some stairs made from old tires, classic. On this other peak a little hut occupied by one Korean guy who I'm assuming is on fire watch duties. We kind of wave hello to him, but he doesn't understand a speck of engrish, so we just wander around his area taking pictures. I take a rough panoramic to give you an idea of the view:


(if you want to see a bigger version, just let me know. This picture isn't anything special, the exposures aren't consistent from one segment to the next)

We get back to the trail and decide to keep going up... We find that the concrete path veers off back down the mountain on a dirt path, so we take that route.. I take some shots of Bert for his girlfriend back home. (Invoice is in the mail, missy! haha)



I might have mentioned before that I've been wanting to take a picture of the rolling hills with all the mist.. I think it looks dreamy and whimsical, and it reminds me of a picture by Mark Hemmings that I really admire (I can't seem to find it on his blog anymore though)

Here's my take on those hills:

(This isn't too far off from what we were seeing with our own two eyes, amazing!)

The complex from about the highest point we reached:


The city is under perpetual construction.. You can't go anywhere without seeing about a half dozen sky-cranes..


By this point we're heading back down the mountain.. I figured it would be a lot easier than going up, but it has it's own challenges.. First of all, it's not as safe, as it's easier to lose your footing. Second, it's really hard on the legs and knees as you're pounding on them on the way down, and really hard on the bottom of your feet. My feet and legs were fine on the way up, but the moment we started making our way down, I could feel 3 or 4 good size blisters starting to form. My feet were about to explode once we got to the bottom, haha.

Here's the hut in the distance from another angle:


There were a few people on the trail.. It seemed like a common place to go and get some fresh air. This gentleman decided it was a nice enough day for a shirtless jog up the mountain:


A peculiar fact about Korea, the hills are filled with burial grounds. It's apparently an old tradition to be buried in the hills near where you lived (you'll have to confirm that for me.) They are *everywhere*, in all the hills. Everywhere you drive you see them, it's amazing.



We get back to the complex after about 2 hours of walking, and I'm ready to fall over.. But before I do that, I take a cool picture of Bert by the .. giant ball .. or whatever you want to call it.



(To check out the rest of the pictures from the mountain, follow this link)


The Sean Tour:

Sean promised Bert and I a tour of the city last Sunday, so after the walk up the mountain, and my required hour or two of rest (my poor feet!) we headed out, just Sean, Bert and I. Sean's awesome by the way, never a dull moment around him ;)

We hit highway 7, headed north towards Busan (also pronounced Pusan.. P's and B's are kind of indistinguishable to Korean's, along with L's and R's and K's and G's...)


(Sean the Chauffeur)

Our first stop is at the Hilton, about 40 minutes from the complex.. It's such a big hotel, with a *huge* lobby (which looked like it was made entirely of marble), and a casino.. It's crazy! And it wasn't really that busy (I guess it's winter after all..)

We came for the buffet, so let's get eatin'.


(Sean and Bert walking into the giant dinning room)

I wish I would have taken a few pictures of the dinning room, it was quite large, with big windows surrounding it so it was very well lit, and it had one of the most complete buffet bars I've ever seen. Lots of tasty food. Mmm.

Moving on, we continue our drive through that little touristy area where we see a dried up river bed that is packed full of people driving around in rental 4-wheelers.. Bert and I are determined to come back for that.

This area we're driving around in is very well kept. It has lots of traditional rooftops, it's very clean, and vibrant. I didn't take many pictures of that.. Sometimes you just have to experience it without a lens in between. I'll be back there though, don't worry.

We drive through the mountains until we make a full circle around to the eastern coast, where we follow it south until we reach the Wolsong nuclear plant, and head back to Ulsan through the mountains.

Some of what we see along the way:

(Traditional rooftops in a small community on the coast)


(This looks so cool. A whole community wrapped around a mountain.)

Past the Wolsong plant, we stop at a small fishing wharf to see what it's all about.. there's people fishing off the wharf all around, and it's a gorgeous day.



(Off in the distance, the 4 units at the Wolsong site. We are retubing Unit 1, on the right. There are 2 more being built farther off to the right, these new ones aren't CANDU design though)


(Fishers on the adjacent wharf, I wonder what they are catching..)

Heading back into Ulsan over the mountain, we decide to head into downtown Ulsan to check out the agro-fish market. It would be my first time heading into the city centre.


(The traffic into Ulsan)

The market is almost what I would have imagined when Alain described his experiences in China, but not quite as bad.. haha.

The produce section was very spaceous and had lots of space to walk around, but the fish section was packed, cramped, dark, loud, and wet.


(Sean admiring a bin full of fish guts and other undesirables)

I buy some clementines (half a box full actually) and some yummy lookin' strawberries.. (they are everywhere here!)

While we're in the city we check out the MegaMart there to buy some groceries... The first thing that struck me as odd was the Korean parking attendants waiving cars through to the right areas of the parking lot.. there were about a dozen of them, one at nearly every row-end, and they are almost robotic. their waiving and direction movements are very precise and fluid, almost like they are doing a dance. and when you drive past them they bow to you! Unreal... Next time I'm out that way I'm gonna take a video of that.. That definitely needs to be youtubed. We drive by one, and as she bows we say "thank you!" and she blushes and giggles a bit. I bet she doesn't get that a lot.

The MegaMart lives up to it's name, it's massive. No pictures though, the security guard lady told me I had to leave my camera with her, and I couldn't take it in with me. Whatever..

I go in and look for some face-clothes, because I forgot to bring some with me, but I can't find any.. What do they wash their faces with here? I found some kitchen towels that seem to be the right size and figure they'll do ok. I buy a bunch of 8x10 frames for some prints I brought from home, and by then I'm done with shopping in that store.

After that we headed on back to the complex to end the tour. Thanks a lot Sean for the fun trip! and thanks Bert for carrying my clementines while I took some pictures of the market :)

(The other pictures from the tour with Sean can be found here)

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